On Groundhog Day, this small Pa. town becomes the center of the universe

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — The final lucid conversation Malcolm B. "Bud" Dunkel Jr. had with his son Tom was about their hometown's world-famous groundhog celebration.

Bud's dementia had been getting worse, so he watched the 2024 Groundhog Day festivities from home with his nurse as his son carried out his duties as the president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club — a title the senior Dunkel once held and cared deeply about for 15 years.

"It's the most he'd spoken in a year," said Dunkel of his father. "He died a few days later."

When the affable, whited-bearded Dunkel says his motivation to make Punxsutawney a year-round tourist attraction is largely about letting other families get a taste of what he and his children grew up with, you're compelled to take him at his word. Especially when stories of Groundhog Days past are everywhere in the borough of 6,000 people.

All across Gobbler's Knob, where the venerated creature will inform us Sunday whether to expect six more weeks of winter, there's evidence of residents who donated materials, services, and time.

Yet the economic boon of Groundhog Day and adjacent activities borders on incidental. Residents use the word tradition a lot and beam with pride when they describe the thousands who go to great lengths to visit their corner of western Pennsylvania smack dab in the middle of winter. Whether it's selling tickets for buses that will cart tourists around or setting up the expanded gift shop, often entire Punxsutawney families are pitching in.

"My aunt's bridge club comes folds shirts, my family comes and folds, folding every night and every day," said Marcy Galando, executive director of the Groundhog Club, who was putting the finishing touches on a gift shop full of Phil-themed hoodies, hats, cups, lip balm, pencils, cookies, and scarves.

When Galando wasn't ringing up a customer Wednesday, she was fielding calls from attendees with last-minute questions. In the calm before the storm of an excess of 40,000 visitors from all over the world angling to get a peek at the country's most famous prognosticator, there's not a moment to spare. But who's counting?

It turns out, almost everyone in Punxsutawney.

At the Burrow, a downtown watering hole, owner Justin Cameron surveyed his weekend "jigsaw schedule" for staff and sorted through his delivery of Samuel Adams Groundhog Day hats, which are more like Phil plushies promoting the rodent's Cold Snap beer with the Boston brewer.

Hearing Cameron talk about the headaches of scaling a business for 10 times its usual number of patrons sounds like a stress nightmare, and yet he looks for any improvement he can tackle to make the holiday a better experience for visitors: a theme in the borough's approach.

"I think it's the best thing about our town, and the juice is worth the squeeze," Cameron said.

It takes a borough

Some businesses go so far as donating their goods and services even when the return on the squeeze is less obvious. Green Acres donates hay that it will lay out on the Gobbler's Knob grounds before the event. Dunkel said the hay builds a barrier against the cold ground, which got a fresh dusting of snow Wednesday. Proform Powdered Metals donates about 25,000 gold-colored coins with Phil's likeness stamped on them. Members of the inner circle hand them out to visitors year-round.

"It's just our way of supporting the club," said owner Sean Johnston, while making a pit stop to the gift shop. "They do a lot of stuff with the community. They were up in Ridgway [Area School District] yesterday, where my daughter's an art teacher. They've got expenses, so it's just how we can help out."

In addition to hosting a slew of events and activities that sandwich Groundhog Day, the guardians for Punxsutawney Phil who make up the club's all-volunteer inner circle bring the critter to schools (Ridgway is more than an hour away), parades, the Pennsylvania Farm Show, and other community events. It's practically a requirement to be a well-known volunteer and active member of the Punxsutawney community to be voted into the inner circle, which requires a two-thirds vote.

Despite the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's limited means, its Feb. 2 extravaganza has come a long way since the first trek to Gobbler's Knob in 1887. This year the event is expected to break attendance records once again. Dunkel said that in 2023 the inner circle was able to track ticket purchases to 30 different countries and 46 states.

The surge in attendance can be attributed to incremental, yet increasingly rapid, tweaks the inner circle has taken on since the 2000s. About 14 years ago, Dunkel's first project was to install a giant arch that would serve as a marker for Gobbler's Knob. A Groundhog Visitor Center with a gift shop attached was completed during the pandemic; last year, Phil's enclosure at the local library downtown got a new window because the old one was fogging up; and this year the state is pitching in money for giant screens and fireworks to make the viewing experience better for people way in the back. It's all par for the course when spreading the gospel of Phil.

"What an incredible opportunity for the state to just spread the love and to show that it's not just our two main cities [Philadelphia and Pittsburgh] that have an incredible offering for visitors to come in and experience," said Anne Ryan, deputy secretary of tourism for Pennsylvania.

"There are really unexpected gems throughout the state that are also worth seeing, and Punxsutawney is like the exclamation mark on that."

The state grant is still being processed, but Ryan expects about $35,000 will be awarded to Punxsutawney.

The Punxsutawney Phil love is contagious

To appreciate the whimsy and nostalgia of Groundhog Day is to understand why Dunkel goes through great pains as a Phil booster, which on Tuesday had him finishing two groundhog-size Pennsylvania cherry and walnut wood doors for the rodent's ceremony stump, which sits on a giant stage. Wednesday morning, he is in a roofing business conference room fussing with portable light stands. The makeshift studio is for the many Zoom interviews he's knocking out in the final week.

As a media liaison, Dunkel regales reporters with Phil and inner circle trivia — the guardian who feeds Phil and lifts him up during the ceremony is called "the handler," and all guardians have a nickname. When Dunkel finally gets a break Wednesday, he heads home to finish some Phil-themed cutting boards, one of which will go to Gov. Josh Shapiro's eldest daughter.

At Gobbler's Knob, a revolving door of guardians put the finishing touches on a banquet, dueling-pianos show, and talent show scheduled for the weekend. Like Dunkel, many of them grew up with relatives doing the same thing. They are used to working down to the wire.

At the visitor center, Shawn Ronzio, an industrial designer building Phil a new bespoke enclosure, is working to meet an ambitious timeline of his own.

Concrete contours of faux books and a fireplace are already visible, but if Ronzio is to get a "sneak peek" of the space by Groundhog Day, he will have to work overtime to paint, sculpt, and stain. The Westmoreland County artist is one of the few people under contract, yet he has become engrossed with delivering Phil and the woodchuck's public the best home possible.

"I'm like, no, it has to be done," said Ronzio of the pressure he's choosing to put himself under. "Because it'd be cool if we could just take down the paper and everybody could see it. I can get all this up to snuff by Saturday, so at least it'll be viewable. That's my personal goal, and I know I can do it."

Whether he knows it or not, Ronzio has adopted the Punxsutawney way.